 السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم وصلاة والسلام على أشرف المرسلين سيدنا ونبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبي وسلم يا ربنا لك الحمد كما ينبغي لجلال وجهك وعظيم سلطانك اللهم سلم وسلم وبارك على حبيبك المستفاية الرحمن الرحيم اللهم علمنا ما ينفعنا ونفعنا بما علمتنا يا الله Today, inshallah, our hadith is talking about as-salah is talking about performing prayers and it's about standing before Allah سبحانه وتعالى and getting connected with Him عن عبادة بنصامتي رضي الله عن قاد سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول خمس صلوات نفترضهن الله على عباده فمن جاء بهن لم ينتقص منهن شيئا استخفاثا بحقهم فإن الله جاعل له يوم القيامة عهدا أي تخله الجنة ومن جاء بهن قد انتقص منهن شيئا استخفاثا بحقهم لم يكن له عند الله عهد إن شاء عذبه وإن شاء غفر له So it was narrated that عبادة بنصامتي رضي الله عنه said I heard the messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم say five prayers that Allah has enjoined upon His slaves So whoever does them and does not emit anything out of negligence on the day of resurrection Allah سبحانه وتعالى will make a covenant with Him that He will admit Him to paradise but whoever does them but emits something from them out of negligence will will not have such a covenant with Allah if He wills He will punish Him and if He wills He will forgive Him So Allah سبحانه وتعالى has written five prayers for mankind So whoever has a meeting with Allah سبحانه وتعالى then He's going to meet Him in these five prayers every day so five times to meet Allah سبحانه وتعالى every day Now imagine that you love someone and you love that person a love that you never have loved anyone the same way So what happens? You feel that you long to see this person one time after the other now and then any time that you can meet Him Now we say we love Allah سبحانه وتعالى and we have to thank Him for allowing us to meet Him these many times a day So five prayers every day We stand in prayer and we talk directly to Allah No mediator No one to convey our words to Him We talk to Him directly We talk to Him through His words the Holy Quran So how should we perform our prayers And again remember to perform our prayers To perform the qiyam To perform the recitation To perform the rukor To perform the sujud To perform the tashahud So this is what is called yuqimuna s'ala And Allah سبحانه وتعالى in the Holy Quran He did not say صلو He added another word He combined another word with the word s'ala Which is yuqimuna s'ala So yuqimuna s'ala is to perform the prayer It's not just movements It's being present While being in a meeting With Allah سبحانه وتعالى Now a prayer Is to show the continuity Of worshiping Allah سبحانه وتعالى And it's a risk That Allah سبحانه وتعالى Has prepared to His slaves So how would someone accept to deprive himself of this risk If someone knows that there is a treasure Under this rock Then he would go immediately To dig and take this treasure Now how would someone keep himself away from this treasure How would someone accept to be away from being connected to Allah سبحانه وتعالى From meeting Allah سبحانه وتعالى From standing with Allah سبحانه وتعالى And talking to Him So a prayer is the time when someone meets Allah When someone talks to Allah It's a smaller version of the day of judgment Where all of us are going to meet Allah سبحانه وتعالى So when we are with Allah سبحانه وتعالى We are all humble in front of Him We are all humble in front of His Majesty But some people hitless They miss the point behind meeting Allah سبحانه وتعالى And they do that when they get distracted By the trivial things of this furnishing dunya Sometimes when anyone prays Then their mind will be engaged in this dunya What happened, what are we eating today Who got the kids to school Who is going to bring them back I forgot something I did this, I did that Now Where is the presence of the prayer So some people would say When they finish praying We cannot remember how many rakahs did we pray Was it two rakahs or three Was it three or four So we were not present at all while we were praying So how can we overcome this problem Of course there are so many ways to do that And these ways can be divided Into several categories Before starting the prayer While praying And after the prayer So before starting the prayer We have to get prepared We have to get our heart prepared To meet Allah سبحانه وتعالى So the first thing we need to do Before we start our prayer We say بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم So we are getting the shaitan Away from our way And we are asking Allah سبحانه وتعالى With his name When we say بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم So that we want to focus On our prayers We want to be alert Of what we are talking to you يا الله We cannot do it So we ask your help بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم Now with these few words We feel that Our heart is getting ready To meet Allah سبحانه وتعالى So When we say الله أكبر When we say الله أكبر Then what happens We are declaring that We are declaring that We are Leaving this dunya away We are leaving All its adornments away All its problems away And We are now in the presence Of Allah سبحانه وتعالى We are enjoying the company Of Allah سبحانه وتعالى Now that we started What do we do while we are praying When we start reciting الفاتحة We know that this Surah is A conversation between And we talked about About this thoroughly About these conversations thoroughly In session 4 of this series What does every ayah mean What does it How we say the ayahs And what Allah سبحانه وتعالى Answers us So go back to Session 4 of this series And listen again to What it means to read الفاتحة Then after the fatah We read short Surah Or a few lines, a few pages Of a long Surah Now To focus on The prayer Try to read A different Surah Every time Try to To read A Surah That you recently memorized So that you keep Focusing on the ayahs On the words that you are reading Now We are done with reciting Surah الفاتحة And then a short Surah When we Are done with that Then we bow And then So we do the Rukor And then we follow it by the Sujood So when we do the Rukor And we follow it by the Sujood We understand the real meaning Of the majesty of Allah سبحانه وتعالى We are his slaves We are only slaves To Allah سبحانه وتعالى And when someone realize this service To Allah سبحانه وتعالى We can We understand that we can do nothing Except with Allah's permission So that knowing Knowing all of this Then we know that We can That Whatever we have Whatever we do Can all vanish in just a blink of an eye We are servants Of Allah سبحانه وتعالى We can do nothing Except what Allah سبحانه وتعالى Has permitted us to do And when we are successful Then we have to ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى We have to thank him For making us successful It's not our work It's not our Our hard work That made us successful No If that was not permitted for us To be successful Then it won't have happened So we have to have this in mind We have always to remember We are slaves Of Allah سبحانه وتعالى And nothing can happen Except with his permission And this can be manifested While we are bowing To Allah سبحانه وتعالى While we are doing Sujood to Allah سبحانه وتعالى And there are a lot of eyes In the Holy Quran That talk about Performing the prayers And of course The Quran starts with Surah Al-Fatiha And we said that Surah Al-Fatiha is a summary Of the whole Quran And it is called the mother Of the Quran The mother of the book Then Surah Al-Baqarah Which is the second Surah Starts with talking about The believers The Those who have Whose hearts Whose conscious is alert So هدا للمتقين الذين يؤمنون بالغيب ويقيمون الصلاة ومن ما رزقناهم ينفقون أولئك على هدا من ربهم وأولئك هم المفلحون So those conscious Of Allah Who believe In the unseen يؤمنون بالغيب ويقيمون الصلاة They establish the prayer They perform the prayer ومن ما رزقناهم ينفقون And they spend out Of what We have provided For them So who are those people أولئك على هدا من ربهم وأولئك هم المفلحون Those are The guided People By their Lord And It's those Who are successful And Allah To perform the prayers And He urged them To be On the prayers To hold tight To the prayers So He says In Surah Al-Baqarah Aya 238 حافظوا على الصلاة والصلاة الوسطة وقوموا لله قانيتين Maintain With care The obligatory prayers Be careful To not lose them The middle prayer الصلاة الوسطة وقوموا لله قانيتين And stand Before Allah Devoutly Obedient And the list goes on and on And on about The ayahs in the Holy Quran That talk about Performing the prayers Then الله سبحانه وتعالى Reminds us That there is a reward For every obeyed order So الله سبحانه وتعالى Ordered us to perform the prayers And There is a reward for that In Surah Al-Baqarah Aya 277 الله سبحانه وتعالى Talks about The reward For those who perform the prayers إن الذين أمنوا وعملوا الصالحات وأقاموا الصلاة وأتوا الزكات لهم لهم أجرهم عند ربهم ولا خوف عليهم ولا هم يحزنون Indeed Those who believe And do righteous deeds And establish the prayers Perform the prayers And give zakah Will have their reward With the Lord And there will be No fear concerning them There will be no fear Nor will they grieve لا خوف عليهم ولا خوف عليهم ولا هم يحزنون In Surah Al-Nisa الله سبحانه وتعالى Says لكن يراسخون في العلم منهم والمؤمنون يؤمنون بما أنزل إليك وما وما أنزل من قبلك والمقيمين الصلاة والمؤتون الزكات والمؤمنون والمؤمنون بالله واليوم الآخر أولئك سنؤتين أجرن عظيم but those firm in knowledge among them and the believers believe in what has been revealed to you يا محمد and what was revealed also before you and the establishers of the players those who perform the prayer and give the givers of zakah and the believers in Allah and the last day so what are those what will happen to those أولئك سنؤتين أجرن عظيم those we will give a great reward so now we might ask what is this reward so one of the rewards of the believing Muslims who perform the prayers is mentioned in Surat Al-Tawbah الله سبحانه وتعالى says والمؤمنون والمؤمنات أولياء بعض يأمرون بالمعروف وينهون عن المكر ويقيمون الصلاة ويؤتون ويؤتون الزكات ويطيعون الله ورسولها أولئك سيرحمهم الله إن الله عزيز يقيمون so the believing men and believing women are they are allies of one another they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong so these are the characteristics of the believers men and women those people they establish the prayer they give the zikah and they obey الله سبحانه وتعالى and his messenger so what happens what will happen to them أولئك سيرحمهم الله those الله will have mercy upon them إن الله عزيز ويقيم indeed الله is exalted otherwise now imagine that الله سبحانه وتعالى have mercy on you over you so what will happen will be in paradise سيد محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم says لن يدخل أحدكم الجنة بعمله قال ولا أنت يا رسول الله قال ولا أنا لن يقل الله برحمته سيد محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم قال لا أحد will get into paradise according by his action and they asked him not even you he said not even me unless الله سبحانه وتعالى will get me will have his mercy upon me so now those believing men and believing women will have mercy upon them by الله سبحانه وتعالى and the list again goes on and on about those believers who perform the prayer now if we ask ourselves what's the difference between praying and performing the prayer and I mean like this what's the result of performing the prayer or praying and سيد محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم says that some people will have from their prayers just only going up and down and the movements of the prayer so they will not have the reward for the prayer because they are not actually praying they are just doing some exercise they are going up going down going down من لم تنه صراته معنى الفحشائي والمنكر فلا صلاة لها whoever his prayer did not prevent him from doing bad deeds and then the reward of his prayer is just some exercise movements because when someone prays then he is connected to Allah سبحانه وتعالى he is receiving the light of Allah سبحانه وتعالى he is receiving the light of the prayer then that light will be in his heart and that light will help him to perform good but if someone does just doing the actions just the movements just an exercise then this will not happen to him so we have to to observe what we are doing we have to to be careful and we have always to remember that Allah سبحانه وتعالى is with us is over watching us and we have to remember that there are angels who are recording our actions so the prayer one of the merits of the prayer one of the results of performing a prayer is that a person would always remember that Allah is over watching a person would always remember would be always alert that Allah is with him Allah is with me Allah is with me Allah is looking over me Allah is شاهدي Allah is witnessing whatever I do فمن جاء بهنة لم ينطقس منه النشية so whoever does or perform the prayer and does not waste anything of the prayer any part of the prayer then what happens so he does not waste anything any part of them by making light of what is due to them so do not belittle any action of the prayer so but there will be a covenant between this person and Allah سبحانه وتعالى that Allah will admit into paradise so this is the reward for those who perform the prayer ومن جاء بهنة قد ينطقس منه النشية so whoever does not do them and there is no impact for him with Allah سبحانه وتعالى there is no impact there is no covenant إن شاء عزبه وإن شاء غفر الله if Allah wishes then he will punish that person and if he wishes he he can forgive that person so it's up to Allah سبحانه وتعالى performing the prayer is one of the types of worshipping Allah سبحانه وتعالى and there are a lot of that explains this type of worship in full details and this is a unique way to worship Allah سبحانه وتعالى so performing the prayers never stops never stops even if the person is sick so if anyone whoever is unable to perform the prayer standing then he must do it sitting and whenever whoever cannot do it sitting then he should do it while he is laying down so this is a continuous unique way to worship Allah سبحانه وتعالى so when the call of the prayer is heard from Allah سبحانه وتعالى for each and every person to stand before him and be in his prayer this is why when any problem used to to face what happened he used to to perform some prayers he used to perform a few of praying to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and this is a sin when you have a calamity when you have a problem when you have any issue that you want Allah's help just make him pray to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and ask him whatever you want and we mentioned this over and over that the best time to ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى for anything is the time before before before before before before before talk to Allah سبحانه وتعالى ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى whatever you want so Allah سبحانه وتعالى has enjoined 5 prayers every day that if we do them we will be reported but if someone decides not to do them then the door of meeting Allah سبحانه وتعالى and be in his presence then this door is closed and it's not that this person does not want to pray no look at it from a different angle it's Allah سبحانه وتعالى does not want to hear the voice of this person I'm going to tell you a story about one of the companions at the time of Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم he saw Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم he started praying the night prayer so he said I will pray with Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم so he prayed with him and Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم started with Surah Al-Baqara so he finished Surah Al-Fatiha and started with the next Surah Surah Al-Baqara and this person said to himself it will be a few pages and then he will make a report well these few pages were not few pages Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم kept on going after a few pages so he said okay maybe Sayyidina Muhammad will read only half a jazeb half a jazeb passed and Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم he is still praying he is in his first rakah by the way so he said okay I think at the end of the first jazeb he will stop and Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم went on and on and on he did not stop at the end of the first jazeb so this person said this companion said okay I'm sure he will stop at the end of the second jazeb and Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم did not stop at the end of the second jazeb he kept on and on he finished Surah Al-Baqara then he started Surah Al-Aramran and then he finished Surah Al-Aramran and the person saying okay I'm sure he is going to make Surah Al-Aramran now but Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم went with Surah Al-Nisa and he finished Surah Al-Nisa until that person said to himself okay I'm going to do Salam and then I will pray two short rakahs and that's it so what happened to Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم he was enjoying the meeting between him and Allah سبحانه وتعالى he did not notice that he read so many jazeb he did not notice that he went over 100 pages he did not notice anything he is in the presence of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and one of the things that Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم wanted us to do was an answer to one of the questions that one of his companions has asked him he came to Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم and he said أي أعمال أفضل يا رسول الله and Sayyidina Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم أجاب الصلاة وعلى وقتها so the best action to do or the best thing to do is to perform the prayer immediately after adhan calls for it now someone might say okay I just heard the adhan call the call for the prayer and I am working I cannot stop I cannot take a break so he is a doctor performing a procedure he is a pilot driving the plane he is a major major work well for this person we say how about if you are doing this this job of yours that you think you cannot leave how about if you want to use the restroom would you or would you not so a few minutes a few time would not be impossible to perform a prayer so sometimes people who are not Muslims they would admire you when they would look at you and see that you are performing your prayers and so many people got into Islam just for watching people how they are performing their prayers so when you pray at your work then you are calling people to Islam without saying it الله سبحانه وتعالى when you want to do to perform your prayer الله will facilitate it and when we do these 5 prayers a day then as we mentioned we are getting connected to Allah سبحانه وتعالى so we are getting closer and closer الله سبحانه وتعالى سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم used to say يا بلال أريحنا بالصلاة أو بلال make us at ease by praying by calling for the prayer we would not pray so سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم missed the few hours between the salah and the next without meeting الله سبحانه وتعالى and he asked بلال رضي الله وعن to call for the prayer he wants to be talking he wants to talk to Allah سبحانه وتعالى in one of the narrations he said so so is made coolness of an item so he feels that he is enjoying his time with Allah سبحانه وتعالى and that what makes the soul get tranquility and we know that all previous messages ordered ordered the people to pray we we need to say that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has ordered people to pray so the order for the prayer came back with سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم when he descended to earth after so that was when Allah سبحانه وتعالى enjoying the prayers on the Muslims so all Muslims have to pray 5 times 5 times a day but is that all no we just mentioned that it's a way to connect to Allah سبحانه وتعالى when we can do all the sinan all the Nawafil we can pray way more than only 5 rakas 5 times every day every prayer every day so Allah سبحانه وتعالى wanted us to pray and when he said حافظو على الصلاوات maintained the prayers and do not waste them do not waste them so getting connected with Allah سبحانه وتعالى through performing the prayer is something is a blessing from Allah سبحانه وتعالى in محمد الرسول الله والذين معه أشداء على الكفار رحماء بينهم تراهم ركع سجدا يبتغون فضلا من الله ورضوانا سماهم في وجوههم من أثر السجود so Allah سبحانه وتعالى في أية 29 of سورة الفتح which is the last aya he is talking about سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم and his companions so he said محمد is the messenger of Allah and those with him are forceful the nonbelievers but they are at the same time merciful among themselves and you can see them bowing and prostrating prostrating in prayer seeking bounty from Allah سبحانه وتعالى and his pleasure so their mark is on their faces there are marks on their faces from the trace of frustration so الله سبحانه وتعالى is talking to us and he is talking about the characteristics of those people the light the light of the prayer is on their faces their marks on their faces from the trace of the prostration and one of them increases your sight to him from Allah looking at one of them would get you closer to Allah and that's why it is said دول لك على الله ما قالوا so be in the presence of people whom if you look at them you will remember Allah سبحانه وتعالى and if they speak then their words will get into your heart and if these words will get you to remember Allah سبحانه وتعالى and will get you to be elevated to Allah سبحانه وتعالى so you will be happy when you see the people whom you love but you will be really happy when you meet Allah سبحانه وتعالى when you are with Allah سبحانه وتعالى when you perform the prayers that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has ordered us to perform and until we meet next week I send my salawat and your salawat سيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم وسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته